Epistle No. 81

Mark how our shadow, Mark Movits, mon frere
One small darkness encloses
How gold and purple that shovel there
To rags and rubbish disposes

Charon beckons from tumultuous waves
Then trice this ancient digger of graves
For thee ne'er grapeskin shall glister
Wherefore my Movits come help me to raise
A gravestone over our sister

Even desirous and modest abode
Under the sighing branches
Where time and death, a marriage forebode
Twixt beauty and ugliness ashes

To thee ne'er jealousy findeth her way
Nor happiness footstep, swift to stray
Flitteth amid these barrows
E'en enmity armed, as thou seest this day
Piously breaketh her arrow

The little bell echoes the great bells groan
Robed in the door the precentor
Noisome with quirsters prayerful moan
Blesses those who enter

The way to this templed city of tombs
Climbs amid roses yellowing blooms
Fragments of mouldering biers
Till black-clad each mourner his station assumes
Bows there deeply in tears